


The Spaces Between

by darkly_light



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Memories, Complicated Relationships, Dark, Drug Addiction, Holmes Brothers, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mycroft-centric, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 21:34:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3911461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkly_light/pseuds/darkly_light
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft has always loved his brother a little too much. When he becomes more aware of how he feels, he tries to distance himself. Sherlock makes it difficult. Eventually they collide.<br/> </p><p>'“Observe. Deduce. Eliminate all possibilities and what is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth.”</p><p>A small hand grasps each of his older brother's wrists, closing the space between them. They draw widening circles on his palms, taking in his every word like air. His eyes shine bright and pale greybluegreen, begging: show me.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Mycroft grows up, he wants to rule the world.

 _How fascinating_ people are to him, with their stories barely hidden in the folds of their clothes, the creases of their skin and the colour of their sighs, aching to be told.

 _Brilliant_ , Mummy calls it in gold, before it gets tiresome. Mycroft stops telling stories out loud. He reads extensively.

Everything is fascinating to him.

Daddy is the next to call him _brilliant_ , and it is amber like the crackle of dying embers from the hearth. Daddy is quiet too and they play chess in his study which smells of leather-bound books and the cigarettes he professes not to smoke. Mycroft knows when you let him win and he doesn't much like it. Instead, Daddy wins nine times out of ten, which makes that rare victory all the sweeter.

Eight times. Seven. Six.

Mummy and Daddy are so proud. _He shines._

One day, Mycroft whispers to Mummy that he is building a palace. It will big enough to hold them and all the things ever known. It will be bright and light and quiet. It will keep them safe.

“Yes, love,” she says absentmindedly. Her fingers are splayed wide, palming her stomach gently.

In their games, Mycroft and his father are more evenly matched these days. Daddy is distracted by something small and inevitable. Each victory feels more hollow than the last.

Finally they put a name to it, this shade of silence, shifting, this hollowbitter _black_. He is going to have a brother or sister. Mycroft tells them he doesn't want one. He expects this to be relevant and it isn't.

All of a sudden, the noise seems louder; the colours shift, almost imperceptably, a fraction darker. Mycroft observes blue on black like a bruise behind his eyelids, creeping out of focus into the corner of his vision.The house hums to him at night and he cannot sleep alone, though he shuts his eyes and holds his breath to see if that will help but he can still see his heartbeat thumping _red-black, red-black, red-black and fireworkbloodbursts in his ears._

He hates that Daddy laughs, hates the arguments, hates the bump that pushes he and Mummy further apart with a countdown he cannot hear.

He hates that he does not know what this is and how to make it _stop_.

One night he wakes and Mummy and Daddy are gone and there is a monster in his head, breathing soft and slow and hungry. Only now, he knows that _it has always been there_ but he can quiet it usually. There is Mummy when he can't, her soft-smooth voice like caramel and her curls and her light but now it knows and it is coming for him, (coming from him?) tendrils twisting at his insides.

Smiling but shattered, Mummy returns from hospital with a tiny bundle of relevant data.

Everything changes.

Mycroft finds the words and tries them on his tongue for good measure, wraps it around them until he can barely breathe, hear, see. The world is ablaze.

“Mycroft, this is William-”

_WilliamSherlockScottHolmes._

“Your new brother-”

_The voices are echoing, whispering light but brighter still._

“You'll take care of him-”

_Always._

There are too many words, too many names for this, too much, this thing so small. Mycroft looks down at the cradle and recognises something reflected in the blue, irrevocable.

_Sherlock._

He tries the syllables again and clings to them, two, strange like his own; they stretch with possibility, coiled tight in wisps of dark hair.

Mycroft feels a warmth in the pit of his stomach, spreading out to his extremities: toes, fingertips, brain. He says it again and again until the vowels and consonants blur into each other and _there_ , there is only colour.

He kisses his brother on the forehead, and whispers, _Sherlock,_ soft and warm and yellow as the sun.

  


_*_

  


Mycroft is going to rule the world someday.

(There was a time when Mummy and Daddy would have smiled encouragingly at their precocious eldest son, reiterated fondly across dinner tables after too many flutes of fizzing pale-gold nectar had lightened their eyes and conversations: oh the things children say! Yet Mycroft had an old soul, Mummy always said, _and black as ink as tar as the spaces between the pinpoints of stars,_ only she didn't see or didn't say.)

At age twelve, Mycroft's command of the English Language is exceptional. There are things he doesn't speak of.

He has found a method to control the fireworks, a system-spectrum to store, organise and recall the otherwise senseless information that bombards him with colour and sound.

Nothing scares him any more.

His classmates have no sense of who he is, the young man with purposeful eyes and perfect pitch and a terrible mind _._ They see only what he might become: a threat, an ally or enemy to keep closer still, for future reference. He despises their opportunism, yet encourages it for similar reasons of his own. He works tirelessly. He deduces without meaning to that his teachers are a little afraid of him, though they sing his praises most highly.

Everything is dull, grey, but he hides it well.

Mummy and Daddy are proud, perhaps a little afraid themselves.

When he is finally due to return home, Mycroft wavers, terrified that something will have changed or that his memories are false, skewed out of anticipation and longing. Sherlock is five years old and he observes what the others do not. He takes Mycroft apart, piece by piece, with his pale eyes. Wrapping himself around his brother's waist, he can hardly tell where each of them starts and ends, light and dark intertwined, and in ways no one else observes, he puts his brother back together.

  


*

  


Sherlock Holmes wants to be a pirate. For sure, he is fast and wild and as untamable as his thick, dark mop of curls, ricocheting across the family estate and leaving destruction or brilliance in his wake. Gently Mycroft reminds him that pirates are firstly murderous criminals, secondly that they are overly romanticised in fictional accounts, and there it is again.

“Why do you always spoil everything?”

_There is a storm brewing under the skin, bruising purple-blue-black, barely contained within his lips and his words. Small muscles quiver amidst a spectrum of expressions and he pretends it doesn't scare him, just a little. What he could do and why._

_(“It's just a game, My,”_ Mummy soothed, whilst he seethed, every time, _“Play along.”)_

He takes a breath.

“We'd have to be nemeses,” Mycroft adds lightly, when his attempts fail to deter the young bucaneer. “I wouldn't let you go around killing people.”

 _Couldn't_ , he means. _Shouldn't (but I'd let you, I would, I would)_.

“You w _ould,_ ” Sherlock says, smugly. He is so content in his small victory that even Mycroft is not such a sadist to swindle him out of it.

Instead, Mycroft hums in blue, _playing,_ just a little, shakes his head, “I don't think I could stand being your nemesis.”

“I'd get away with it then. No one else could stop me.”

Mycroft has to remind Sherlock that these adventures are only stories. As a rule, people in life are not nearly so interesting. He had seven years more experience of peers and teachers and strangers. He has seven years of thick grey disappointment to distract himself from.

Sherlock spends most of the day that followed chasing and being chased by 'Peter Pan'; he has stuck a selection of leaves to Redbeard's shaggy coat, the Irish Setter Mummy has purchased in Mycroft's absence. His fur is the approximate shade and length of Mycroft's hair and Sherlock adores him and it aches in his chest.

Mycroft tries to read to him before bed. Mummy has marked the page, yet Sherlock positively rips the book from his brother's hands and recites, word for word:

“ _'_ _Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder.'”_

He is trying hard to sound bored. Liquid gold dulled to honey dulled to ochre, but a wonder, still, a marvel.

Mycroft explains gently that the stars are a silent metaphor. Real stars are luminous spheres of plasma held in place by their own gravity. The 'winking' of stellar scintillation is due to refraction of their light through the Earth's atmosphere. Universally, they are considered beautiful and fascinating and accordingly, Mycroft has stored a great deal of data about them and the colours they burn.

Mycroft could show him, teach him, if Sherlock would like. While they have time. His palms are open, outspread and his eyes blue; his words as light as he can make them, but even to his own ears, his voice sounds textbook grey and Sherlock's nose wrinkles visibly at that insinuation there because _he will be alone, alone in this half-empty house with too many echoes and hollow rooms and the shades of silence that inhabit them; their colours mutate, muted unfathomably in the small, fractured space between his eyes and the ringing in his ears to a darkness that sounds like madness._

Sherlock does not like to be alone and Mycroft is the only one who knows why.

Yet like his brother, he feels no need to implicate others in his method, much to the despair of Daddy and the numerous tutors that have come and gone from the Holmes household, much to his brother's salient approval.

Between this paradox and the next, seven years stretch out, vast. Mycroft wonders what it would take.

That night they stare through Mycroft's telescope; _Peter and Wendy_ lie forgotten. Mycroft names the constellations and their stories and component parts, Sherlock mumbles a half-step behind him, tracing their points and the spaces between on his thin white arms. They are covered in goosebumps. Bluish veins tremble, red-full with blood, colour-shrouded in skin. Mycroft's voice shines, Sirius to Antares, and _the colours are perfect._ He wraps his jacket around his brother's shoulders and doesn't feel the cold.

They lie on the cool, damp grass outside and Mycroft listens as Sherlock points and reiterates and his eyes ignite as he smiles. Mycroft has parted with his beloved chemistry set, a dog-eared copy of Treasure Island, and most of his soil samples. Instead he keeps something altogether more fascinating safe, within.

Blue is bleeding through black. The sky lightens with a whisper of morning. Through Mycroft's telescope, the stars can no longer be seen. Still though, they shine.

  


*

  


When Sherlock wants to punish Mycroft, he does not speak at all, sometimes for weeks on end. Usually, Mycroft breaks first and apologises for whatever small and atrocious crime he has committed. Mummy calls it _being the bigger person_. Physically, Mycroft is growing still, in more directions than one. Sherlock is slight with next to no appetite and limbs like twigs and seemingly boundless energy and a disposition that might snap at any given moment. He runs rampant through their estate as if he owns it already and waits impatiently for his brother to catch up.

When Mycroft wants to punish Sherlock, he talks too much. Sherlock presses his fingernails deep in the palms of his hands when he is trying very hard to concentrate and Mycroft tries hard not to notice. His voice is warm and soft and echoing blue, patient and fluctuating like waves, and it is frustrating because Sherlock is trying and he cannot do this, cannot catch up with those seven years that separate them, and there is _always_ a desperate sense that he is running out of time.

“Observe. Deduce. Eliminate all possibilities and what is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth.”

A small hand grasps each of his older brother's wrists, closing the space between them. They draw widening circles on his palms, taking in his every word like air. His eyes shine bright and pale greybluegreen, begging: show me.

Fascinating.

 _Iluminated,_ he is, then. Utterly, hopelessly. He really should stop staring but he burns too damn bright _and it burns, and it is-_

“Brilliant,” he whispers. Next to him, he feels Sherlock smile. Sherlock, who wants to see everything, know everything, dazzle everyone with his brilliance; _if he could only keep his mouth shut for long enough that people might shut up and actually listen to him,_ then he would _._

The truth, then _._

So Mycroft tries to show him the dark, _the hidden things, the things you do not say, merely insinuate and push or pull and twist, and it is an art and the knack is in knowing when and how far and the words to use_ and suddenly Sherlock is staring at him, bright and sad and dreadful, as blue as the darkening stretch of sky above them, waiting to break.

Mycroft senses it, and stops. He counts the seconds as they lie in the long cool grass at the very edge of summer. It stretches out before them, filled with promise. He examines the welts in Sherlock's hands and rubs them with his fingertips, silent. Sherlock's dark curls are everywhere, his eyes are squinting in the sunlight, green flecked with grey. They change with the light, with his moods, his wants. He is small, but his body is beginning to stretch out, an echo of the young man he is to become. Mycroft can see ribs and vertebrae when his T-shirt rides up, his pale skin glowing in the tired sun. Mycroft pulls his own down to cover his stomach. Sherlock pretends not to notice. He talks and talks and for once, Mycroft doesn't interrupt.

Slowly, Mycroft is learning who this small person has become, no longer his reflection, his shadow; infinitely more fascinating. Liberated, Sherlock's hands dance like fireflies and his eyes light up, breathless, electrified. Mycroft is cataloguing him, storing data by its colour.

That summer, Sherlock plays lead violin, Mycroft second. Sherlock gets bored of the pieces quickly. Mycroft would like to practise until each note is perfect. He has taught himself to play this way. Only then will he perform, strictly as the composer intended. Sherlock does not play for an audience. Mycroft puts down his bow and retrieves his case. He cannot think of a single earthly possession he has left to offer as a bribe and resigns himself. Instead Mycroft likes to watch Sherlock when is playing, frenetic, moving his body around the instrument, cradling it to his own compositions.

They find the body of a dormouse in the field, warm and still and sad. They dissect it together. When Sherlock breaks its skeleton apart, Mycroft helps him put it back together. They climb trees and throw sticks for Redbeard and eat fresh blackberries, the juice staining their fingertips dark red like open sores. They stay up late and look at the skies, but there is not much to see except the outlines of clouds in shades of blue and grey.

Mycroft whispers to his brother in the dark things he already knows and under his breath mutters something light and unthinking, meant more for himself.

“Caring is not an advantage”

 _As though he might stop himself, as if he could turn the frequency down, make the_ always _just a shade darker, more bearable_.

At sixteen, Mycroft leaves for university. His passion, determination, cleverness, has paid off. On a bright, chill day in September, they set fire to the first spattering of golden leaves with magnifying glasses and pretend that neither of them have to grow up.

  


*

  


Mycroft Holmes no longer cares whether or not he will rule the world. Rather he would settle to be one person's: world, solar system, universe. His body is racing to catch up with his mind, faster and faster like energy, potential, wasted.

Nothing scares him any more.

He is quiet and discreet and sometimes the white hot heat that envelopes him is enough to forget something small and light and inexplicably missing.

Currently there is a young man _whose name Mycroft does not care to recall_ twisted between his legs, tall and pale and slender, with dark coils of hair that feel somewhat familiar as they brush against his thighs. They quiver. Mycroft tugs a little too roughly and his breath is cold and metallic-sour until long, calloused fingers cup him and stroke. He is almost there as the young man moves to kiss him. He turns him over, pushes him into the mattress.Mycroft coats himself and his fingers and stifles a moan with a kiss to the sacrum of this man, all long-limbed and slender and shaking as his fingers tease and stretch him open, one then two, then more. The young man shudders and moans his name, _My, My,_ and his voice is broken and the colour is _all wrong_ , but Mycroft is close enough that it doesn't matter too much. In the dark, he can see the faint outline of vertebrae through his pale skin and feel his heartbeat as he pushes roughly inside with a gasp.

Soon, he sees stars in the blue behind his eyelids, and they are yellow and it is almost, _almost_ enough.

There are things he doesn't speak of. Still, they shine.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If nothing else, Sherlock has found a way to get his brother's attention. He uses it only occasionally, when he wants to be found.

When Mycroft calls, regularly but less often now than his mother would like, the conversation drifts towards his brother, drawn by some inner tide of which neither of them speak.

Mycroft's voice is suitably soft, cracked robin's egg blue and he hears himself say things he doesn't believe. Her voice is fading with worry, fraying softly at the edges of sentences.

She wants to ask him when he is coming home; he hears a crackle of blue interference and then nothing.

Before Mycroft hangs up, he tells her not to worry.

 

*

 

At twenty, Mycroft graduates with first-class honours.

He knows what it is to be bored and alone with his dark, surrounded by people making small talk and nodding in the spaces in conversations with a thin-lipped smile. He has had four years of it at Cambridge; he tells himself he can manage one day more. People are talking whilst Mycroft is quietly observing, deducing what they had for breakfast and how much they had to drink and who slept with whom the night before and whether they are regretting it. Mycroft is eliminating the content of the rest of their insipid lives amidst asinine promises and goodbyes, knowing they won't remember him until they need to.

The colour drains from his face the moment he sees him.

Sherlock sits crookedly between their parents. His body is all angles and straight lines, jagged, jarring with itself and everyone else there. He scowls at the almost-stranger on the platform and observes what the others do not.

 

*

 

As Mycroft gazes out of his office window across the throbbing heart of the city, the warm September sun over Westminster Bridge is reflected bright and hopeful on the surface of the Thames. Effortlessly, he has secured himself a junior position at the home office. On the surface, it is everything he dared hope for.

On the surface, he is calm and controlled as ever.

The city is vast enough to lose himself in, loud enough to overwhelm him. He goes about committing each detail to memory. He feels like a child again, sitting cross-legged in Daddy's tobacco-stained study late into the night. He takes long, slow walks after work, cataloguing people and their transactions. He takes each line of the underground to the terminus in his three-piece suit, cataloguing names, buildings faces. He takes a Hackney carriage late at night when he cannot sleep and he gazes at the neon signs and glaring faces of the city's glowing underbelly lit up like constellations that ought to fit together, mean something. He is running up the meter, observing, deducing. The driver carries on.

It is only when Mycroft returns to his ridiculously overpriced flat in not-the-nicest-part of Clapham that he observes the not-quite-silence hanging dense and dark as the space behind his eyes. Though he does not much care for the taste, he lights a cigarette out of the narrow bedroom window. He watches the white tendrils of smoke rise and disperse and the grey ash which falls in clumps on the windowsill as the sky begins to change and the stars seem to disappear and he remembers to forget.

Something sets him apart, stops him fading to the grey of ash and concrete and the cut and press of his suit into flesh.

 _Manipulation_ is a filthy word, sludge-brown, viscous and oozing to his ears, but Mycroft finds he almost likes the way it sounds and the way it coats his words in a greasy film no one else seems to sense. He allows what he sees to punctuate the syllables which roll off his tongue and drip steadily down into the spaces between lines rehearsed and eloquently spoken, behind precision eye contact and firm handshakes.

Mycroft finds he is inordinately good at it. He uses it often, only when necessary.

 

*

 

(He came close only once, when the spaces between them felt more tangibly defined, grounded in time and distance and words. Two brothers, seven years and a handspan away, Mycroft found Sherlock hiding in the crawlspace behind the chair in their attic in less than ten minutes.

It had taken him fifteen minutes to force himself to climb the ladder from the upstairs landing. It wasn't that Mycroft was afraid of heights, exactly, more that he didn’t want to fall and survive, and be incapacitated somehow. Having the sharp edges of his mind dulled like sandpaper. That’s what he fears most.

His body never troubled him, overly. Transport.

It is only a matter of time before his will overpowers it.

“Show me how you always find me,” Sherlock demanded, his voice too loud in the unearthed dust, wiping his palms on his knees; a fraction too close to hearing the red-black pulse of his brother's heart and all he had hidden there, safe-

_how he has painted the walls of his mind palace to match the data that inhabits them; how the sparks flying from Sherlock are tinged with gold, and the way he breathes is fireworks-_

_how he could deduce the where and the how from the reverberations of his pulse; how everything he touches shines or ignites with the echo of him and it is too much to ignore; how he could and would come running, always._

As they walked through their family home, Mycroft was somewhere else entirely, reflected in the shiny surface of his eyes. He explained the memory technique; mirrored where things needed to be organised and how they could be found, recalled only when required.

As his brother dissected the fractured dimensions of the inside of his skull, Sherlock observed and deduced and held Mycroft's hand with a fraction of a smile.)

 

She calls Mycroft at the office. There are eleven possible outcomes, all of them terrifying. Mycroft has catalogued them all.

He calms his mother enough that her words make sense. He tells her to observe and describe ( _just tell me what you see, plainly, please_ ). Between yellow and gold, he is searching for pinpoints of light and making quick, quiet calls and checking surveillance databases he probably shouldn't have access to, only Mummy is talking about an article torn from the newspaper. The only newspaper his father reads is the Guardian and Mycroft is searching black lines on white under a street vendor's bloodshot gaze when he sees it:

 _Tragic accident_ , the headline screams. Then there are pictures: a boy, standing in his swimming trunks, grinning awkwardly at his father holding the camera. The locker holding his school uniform, white shirt and grey trousers, creased. Black socks, adult's socks, because his feet are big for his age. The boy's shoes are missing.

At thirteen, Sherlock reads of Carl Powers and deduces his murder.

Mycroft's mind is making quiet inductions he cannot help because Sherlock is small and furious and he won't know the right things to say, the colours to make the police listen (on the phone, at Scotland Yard if he gets that far, of course he will).

It is _who_ you know rather than _how much_ , but Mycroft remembers Sherlock staring, bright and sad and dreadful, into the hollow dark and knows he won't play that way.

Sherlock could call Mycroft, only they have barely spoken in years, seen barely more than a shadow of each other for Sherlock to observe, to deduce and eliminate the why.

Mycroft tells his mother not to worry.

 _There is no one there; the swimming pool is closed but the death is not being treated as suspicious. Sherlock picks the lock and takes photographs using Daddy's camera, swipes at the bottom of the locker he has identified from the picture. This killer is clever, clever to use the trainers, clever like Sherlock and_ Mycroft, who has finally arrived, tight-lipped and sweating. He is a _wreck_ and Sherlock is so, so pleased to see him, _they can solve this together_ that, for a second, he forgets their silence. He only observes.

Almost slipping on the tiles, Sherlock runs towards Mycroft and all he can smell, taste, hear-see-touch is drowning _(bloodshot green eyes flecked with yellow like dried leaves or skin, ripples on the surface of the pool)_ and Mycroft has this strange, weightless feeling as he catches him.

Mycroft calls his mother and makes the right noises in the spaces of Mummy's sobbing and Daddy's shouting.

Sherlock is clawing, clutching at him like he is drowning and yet fighting it with every muscle in his body. Mycroft is very aware of the way they work together _(contract, relax, contact)_ and of the bones moving under his skin as he propels his brother into the back of a taxi. People who do not see the explosions stop in the street. They are beginning to stare. Mycroft stops and sinks back into the cold leather seat, hearing echoes of himself struggling to the surface and then sinking.

 

*

 

The very next day, he receives a call from Sherlock from the family telephone, late at night. He lets the message go straight to answerphone. The small voice sobs into the receiver. _Redbeard,_ he makes out. _Wanted to be sure._ In the background: more tears, shouting, drowning the small, scared voice out. 

 Mycroft doesn't return the call; later, he learns from his mother what has happened. He doesn't quite believe it. Deletes it, without thought. 

 

*

 

These days, Mummy is worried-sad-sick and Daddy is quietly angry, unsure. Sherlock is waiting, impatient as ever, in rooms of white on grey whilst medical professionals pronounce what it is, in their great experience of observing _nothing at all_ , what is wrong with him. When they do, it sounds suitably scary and he finds he likes it.

They look into options, seek alternative advice.

After the third white-grey room, his parents start to believe it.

After the fourth, Sherlock almost convinces himself. He plays the game, finds he gets away with more.

Mycroft is not there to stop him, to argue with his parents and doctors alike that their diagnoses are inconclusive at best, inductions at worst, threatening the way his brother sees himself and the world.

Mycroft is not there to observe, but he remembers Sherlock wrapping arms around his waist, taking his hands, touching, grasping at truths like stars. Sherlock, who never believed there were monsters under the bed, but crawled in with Mycroft anyway, lying together in the dark like the clinking of spoons and bones with the covers drawn over.

He doesn't believe it for a second. He deletes it, without thought, forgetting what his brother might believe about himself.


	3. Chapter 3

Mycroft knows what it is to be bored and alone and stuck in his shadowed shell of a skull with no way out and no distractions worthy of his attention, but above all, he knows when it is necessary.

He finds he doesn't mind the days. He spends his weekends working, making connections, spends the nights with acquaintances he barely knows with the lights on. It is almost enough. Very occasionally, he comes back to his parents' home, only when Sherlock is at school. He pretends he didn't know.

His excuses work until Christmas.

Mycroft is twenty two and Sherlock is a month from fifteen.

The house seems to have shrunk about them, but still they do not fill it. Mycroft's room is much as he left it, almost empty. Sherlock is quiet. The house seems emptier still without the echoes of laughter ricocheting through the corridors and rooms like wisps of gold spread in a breadcrumb-trail he can no longer follow.

Sherlock is looking at a brother he barely knows like he doesn't understand _why he left him_ or worse, _why he has come back at all_.

“Sherlock,” he starts. He doesn't continue.

What comes next is stilted, stop-start, amongst half-finished plates of food and half-hearted attempts at polite conversation. Sherlock is most eloquent in the moments he forgets, his voice settling in a low, dulcet tone between silences. Mycroft's thin smile is approving, his gaze is wondering.

Sherlock is taller than Mycroft now. His long limbs fold, stretch, fold without the awkwardness Mycroft associates with his own adolescence. He is effortlessly graceful in a faded T-shirt and jeans next to Mycroft's best attempt at smart-casual. As Mycroft drinks, he is thinking of the cut of glass or sculpted marble, cataloguing skin stretched over edges and ridges and planes, barely contained.

Their mother keeps topping up his champagne until the bubbles go to Mycroft's eyes and Sherlock is in constant flux, his own centre of gravity contained in the casual shift of knees under the table, long fingers waving, tapping, threading through his hair, and the colours changing in his eyes from grey to blue to green and every shade in between.

Sherlock swigs from his glass when their mother isn't looking, pulling a face.

 _Some things do not change,_ Mycroft thinks, but his blood surges with the brush of denim on tweed and the pull against skin and muscle and bone beneath.

Something new _(an outlier to be ignored, deleted?)_. Insufficient data.

_Observe._

Their hands meet on the stem of his glass.

His head is swimming, an extension and an absence, all at once. He swats Sherlock away, focusing on nothing but the sound of the syllables of his name.

Softly, the rooms blur, swaying. Their parents go up to bed. Mycroft barely notices until the door swings shut. He is drunk and the silence is yellow-black bruised.

“You _distract_ me.”

“Good.”

_I wish you wouldn't._

Mycroft is trying. Sherlock is petulant and virtually unresponsive it aches in his chest because he deserves this and much, much worse. He is nervous. He is moving his hands clumsily, fumbling. He talks too much. It is frustrating because _he cannot do this, cannot erase the last however-many-years, cannot find the words to explain them away, the prayer to make himself forgivable_.

He is usually so good at this, with anyone else. He could convince them. He would.

Sherlock has his intellect and his obstinacy and his restless, meticulous attention focused and refocused and unfocused, all at once. He would give anything for Sherlock to look at him, the way he used to, just for a second.

“Sometimes I feel like I have to make a choice between you,” ( _us,_ he sees; doesn't say) “And the rest of the world.”

Before he can think better of it, Mycroft is apologising for his small and atrocious crimes. He is choking on feeling and bile, trying to get the colours right before they erupt, only Sherlock glares him back into unbidden silence.

“You're _drunk_ , big brother,” his voice is yellow-tinged black, spitting plosives. “Don't start weeping over me like Mummy does. It's _dull_.”

Mycroft tries something else. He is talking in circles and metaphors, his hands dancing, flames reflecting, talking louder and longer because nobody observes, appreciates what he is doing, nobody except his brother because they are the same in so many ways and _brilliant_ , only-

Sherlock is shaking his head and rolling his eyes, _no, no, they are not the same, not at all_ and calling him _lazy_ _(the intonation reads detestable), control freak,_ _manipulative bastard._ Mycroft laughs humourlessly _(“Language, Sherlock,”);_ agrees wholeheartedly, brushes them off, though the sting remains.

Sherlock observes, bored, barely looking at him.

“You're an _abysmal_ liar, My. How do people fail to observe it?”

Mycroft's smile is mercurial, slick, poisonous in return, “Most people only see what they want to, Sherlock.”

“Unless I show them otherwise.” Sherlock's eyes are shining, dangerous, more than capable. Mycroft closes his eyes, seeing the walls he has built, his connections, his ambition illuminated, bursting into flame, eliminated.

It would take Sherlock to undo him _(Mycroft wouldn't make it easy)_. If Sherlock put his mind to it, if he watched his mouth, if he played the game-

Sherlock looks at Mycroft like he can't stand the simple thought of him.

Sherlock is a very good liar, with anyone else. _(_ _He could convince them. He would.)_

Having downed the remainder of its contents, Sherlock slams Mycroft's crystal glass down a little too hard. It shatters. Behind it, Sherlock's expression is surprised, almost fearful, and _there_ , there is something Mycroft knows, that he clings onto like hope like longing like a madman drowning.

_He won't, he won't, he won't._

 

Mycroft wakes on Christmas morning with a pounding headache and a disillusioned brother. He grips the toilet seat and feels his skull is splitting down the centre. He brushes his teeth and runs cold water over his skin until he feels somewhat human again. He puts on a smile that is too wide and doesn't meet his eyes.

Sherlock hands Mycroft a poorly-wrapped black umbrella, the point poking through the coloured paper. He pretends his mother hasn't picked it out and then laughs a little uncomfortably when Mycroft deduces instantly. Mycroft buys Sherlock books, socks and a poorly-wrapped human skull that he hides under Sherlock's pillow with a note on a string through its left eye socket, warning him _under the threat of government intervention_ not to tell their parents. Sherlock pretends not to adore it. Mycroft pretends not to care.

Abysmal, Mycroft wants to smile. _Maybe they shouldn't lie to each other._

Mummy burns the roast parsnips and Daddy drinks too much sherry and Sherlock upturns the Monopoly board when he gets bored, insisting that everyone else is cheating. For the first time in years, Mycroft's face is aching from smiling, unrestrained with silences filled and spaces however temporarily closed and colours brighter than he had remembered.

Sherlock barely looks at him, except when Sherlock thinks Mycroft is not looking. Mycroft catches himself doing the same, loving on loathing or somewhere between the two, barely blinking in the firelight.

Later still, lying in the night, he hears the echo of light footsteps outside his door and a shadow that stays for seconds or hours.

“Sherlock, don't-” he starts and stops. He hears the creak of footsteps passing on the landing and a door close, then only the rustle of sheets against his heated skin and the quiet syllables on his lips.

 

*

 

Sherlock is sixteen and angry. He is bored and alone and angry and he can run, faster than the muscle-heavy halfwits at school, faster, faster, a meteor burning up and burning out.

He can run. Eventually, he gets bored and waits impatiently for his brother to catch up.

Mycroft is twenty three and angrier still when he finally pinpoints Sherlock in a small village in the south of France, smoking a cigarette against a farmhouse, smiling crookedly.

Mycroft is out of breath and patience.

He takes the cigarette from Sherlock's outstretched fingers; meaning to stamp it out, he inhales from it himself. Sherlock tuts and lights another one, unsurprised, his long fingers fast and fluid, pressing against his mouth. This new habit seems as natural to him as the violin.

“Don't you think you're getting to be a little old to be running away from home, Sherlock? You can join the armed forces, get married, fuck-” Sherlock laughs at something and nothing, exhaling, “ _Smoke._ There are plenty of recreational activities which are both endorphin-inducing and morally dubious, yet might not cause Mummy to have _a mental breakdown_ when you choose to partake in them.” (Sherlock is doing a very good job of pretending he doesn't care, deducing something sardonic about Mycroft's shirt and the calorific content of French pastries, which Mycroft chooses to ignore.) “Not to mention the effect on your AS exams. I was at Cambridge at your age. If you just showed a little motivation and _applied yourself_ to something other than interrupting my _extremely tight schedule_ -”

“I'm glad you've taken the time for this little _rendez-vous_ from the office, My. You're obviously stressed,” Sherlock is blowing smoke rings and fire, “It's good for you. Leave the British Government to run itself a little further into the ground. Get some fresh air, sun, _exercise_. Maybe leave off the cake for a while. It'll do you a world of good.”

Mycroft gets close, his voice throbbing, deadly quiet blackredblack, the shade to undermine, debilitate, annihilate: “Just what the _hell_ do you think you are doing?”

“Deductions, My. The old method. A few minor thefts. A forgery on the Credit Lyonnais. Nothing too _riveting_ I assure you, aside from practising my language skills. All very extra-curricular. I wonder, should I put it in my Oxbridge application? Maybe you could put in a good word for me, pull a few strings, call on a few _old flames_.”

_Mycroft observes:_

A trail of breadcrumbs. Newspaper clippings, train tickets, whispers of a name in gold. Clues only his brother could follow.

Sherlock is the only sixteen year old in the world with half of the British Government looking for him.

_Mycroft deduces:_

Sherlock is bored. In his head, _national crisis_ is something to aspire to.

It has a shine to it, rather like _brilliant_ , _fascinating, always._

“Anyway, I wanted to see how far I could get-”

Mycroft uses a lot of colourful language that includes nothing from the eight languages he is fluent in. Sherlock stares at him like he sees fireworks and laughs and laughs.

“I never knew you could be so _human_ , My.” His skin is cold and smooth under Mycroft's hands, his smile reptilian, mimicking, “Thought we were _the same_.”

 _Stop it,_ Mycroft wants to say. _You have my attention, but I am not playing. You are not a sociopath. Stop this._

Mycroft is shaking him, suddenly, violently, finding his brother achingly human beneath his fingertips and angry and suddenly they are clawing each other, kicking and squirming and brawling like brothers, red sparks flying, and fists and knees and eyes and full of redblack blood and someone will see _and he wants and he wants to tear him apart and put him back together and so much more-_

_I wanted to see how far I could get-_

Mycroft is pushing him back, shoving him, suddenly, urgently away, _Sherlock, stop, Sherlock._

One of their cigarettes has burnt through Sherlock's thin T-shirt, leaving an angry red welt that will heal hard and white and raised. The pain in his chest is growing roots, pinning them in place a few paces apart.

_-before you caught up with me._

Unspoken.

Unbidden, Mycroft's mind is making deductions or inductions _(he hasn't got the data, the missing piece)_ and Mycroft's body cannot catch up. He feels sure it is going to betray him.

He is muttering something about transport and so they hitch a ride from a German woman who drives fast and does not know they are brothers. Mycroft pretends his linguistic ability is less than fluent and Sherlock doesn't say a word. Their driver is thankfully quiet, though she smiles at Mycroft knowingly in the rear-view mirror as though she reads his eyes and the hitch in his breaths.

Mycroft is there and somewhere else entirely, replaying, pausing, refocusing on details he might have missed:

_Sherlock wants Mycroft's attention._

_Sherlock is_ telling _Mycroft he wants his attention._

Mycroft is fighting every muscle in his body as he forces himself to stare out of the window. Fingertips curl, dangerously, across the seat between them, like apologies or excuses or deductions, never quite meeting in the middle.

_Sherlock is going to make this difficult._

 

*

 

Mycroft spends too much time cataloguing and analysing possibilities, improbabilities, courses of action and inaction.

He does nothing, not because it is easier.

Mycroft's colleagues have no sense of the young man whose words seem older than his years with the three-piece suit and the cold, calculating blue of his stare and the surveillance notes that appear on his desk from the air. He can hear something they cannot, from behind the walls, behind the glazed eyes of faceless politicians and colleagues counting down until pay checks. The little cogs turning, all the pieces fitting together; the pulling of levers, whirrings of government machinery, bigger than all of them, pulling together. From his desk, he has a sense of setting things in motion.

Mycroft to a bigger flat in a respectable area. The city thrums in the background constantly, hums to him through the night, but he hardly hears it. Mycroft is busy, beyond distraction. One day, the rhythm will be his, as sure as the simple fact of his pulse.

He sends a prepaid mobile to Sherlock's halls and waits, hears nothing, remembers to forget again until Sherlock finds a new way of getting his attention.

Sherlock is bored _._ Chemistry bores him. Drink bores him and sex bores him and people bore him because that is all they seem to _thinkspeakbreathe_ for. He has run out of places to run to because he doesn't want to be found.

Sherlock finds cocaine.

Eventually Sherlock drops out of university, finds himself drawn to London, where Mycroft is building walls he hopes they will never need. Mycroft pushes a prepaid mobile through the letterbox of Sherlock's flat and waits, hears nothing, tries to forget again.

Sherlock tries different solutions, combinations, methods of ingesting, until he shines brighter, faster and he keeps coming back to it or it to him like almost-strangers in the corner of a seedy bar or alleyway or room he has to creep out of in the desperate, early hours of the morning, to a run-down, empty flat he can barely afford.

Mycroft is trying very hard not to observe. Sherlock is making it difficult. He tracks down the landlord to prepay three months rent, contacts the energy and water suppliers, sends calculated packages of food that will fit through the letter box.

Sherlock is eating into his savings and stealing from strangers and stretching himself air-thin across a city that doesn't fit his mind, can't possibly contain him, not like this.

Sherlock is spilling over into the streets and Mycroft is trying hard to cover it up but there are echoes of his small and atrocious crimes everywhere. London is being paved in stolen gold and Mycroft cannot catch up, cannot play this way.

It is exhausting _(playing nemeses, brothers, heroes and villains, pirates and addicts and Machiavellian miscreants. Which is it to be today?_ Mycroft wants to ask, he could find him to ask him, but Sherlock wouldn't make it easy, wouldn't answer, would just laugh and run, run) _and soon someone else is going to see._

Mycroft is not such a young man and he had an old soul, black as anything.

“ _I'd get away with it then. No one else could stop me.”_

There are surveillance notes on his desk and cameras he shouldn't have access to and people who are waiting for a word or a nod, and still he waits.

There is a storm brewing under Sherlock's skin, bruising purple-blue-black, about to break. Mycroft has been building lightning rods atop the cityscape. Wherever it may strike, he is ready, he tells himself. Braces himself for impact.

He pretends it doesn't scare him, but it always has.

What he could do or why he did not.

 

*****

 

_Lazy, detestable, manipulative bastard, Sherlocks are whispering, all around._

_You manipulate people for a living, why not the ones that matter?_

The colours are spinning in putrid shades of yellow and he feels faintly sick. He kneels down over his brother. His face is wet. Mycroft realises his tears are falling onto Sherlock's brother's face. The guilt is pouring out of him, he is leaking black, seeping blue and he is shaking, shaking him.

“I see it too, My,” Sherlock is whispering, too pale to know what he is seeing or saying.

“Yes,” Mycroft says, “I know,” and swiftly closes the space between them and takes Sherlock's pulse as the sirens scream red outside.

 

*

 

_Stay with me, stay with me._

Green eyes flicker, pale and brilliant.

It sounds too much like a question or worse, like begging; to his ears, a shade too pale. Something he could refuse.

 _Never_ , Sherlock smiles. _Never_ , and his eyes dance like spiders weaving webs everywhere that matters and it sticks like longing and regret. He is not going to make this easy.

“All right,” Sherlock murmurs.

Mycroft makes a few calls. He speaks to the right people with the correct number and intonation of syllables to make them pay attention.

They are in a private room, waiting somewhere else entirely. Sherlock is swimming in and out of consciousness. Mycroft is the lifeboat waiting close by should he show signs of drowning, knowing he is too late.

He curls himself up on the hard-backed chair, tells himself _just 10 minutes_ when he feels his eyelids droop, after hours of inactivity. He wakes, hours later, to Sherlock's eyes, fixed then wondering.

_Behind closed eyelids, versions of them are wondering their parents' estate, laughing, chasing, catching each other. Playing hiding games, finding games; it is all a game until suddenly it isn't. They are in the attic again, only everything is covered with a thick film of dust and cobwebs and filth over yellow. Mycroft is rummaging for relevant data, only he isn't sure what he is searching for. The old rocking chair is like a throne in the centre of the chaos._

“ _I ruled here once?” one Sherlock asks, though he already knows it, feels it in the shadowed imprint of his bones._

Mycroft nods warily, _yes._ Another Sherlock rolls over wearily, his eyelids drooping.

“Why didn't you come back for me?” he mumbles.

_Observe. Deduce._

_Too many brothers are waiting for an answer that fits and still, something is missing. The same and not the same._

_You don't get to ask that,_ Mycroft finally doesn't say.

“I'm sorry,” he settles for instead.

“It doesn't matter now.” _Sherlocks are waxing indifferent, burning at different ages and stages of light and using his own words against him,_ “Caring is not an advantage.”

No. _You used to be much brighter_ , Mycroft wants to say, fingers cupped against his brother's angles, tangled in his curls. _Sherlocks and not-Sherlocks, flickering same._

No. He wants to ask _when and why and what could he have done_ , but instead the corners of his eyes crease and his mouth crumples like ash like dust like paper licked at the corners by flames.

“It matters. You always have.”

 _It must be here,_ Mycroft thinks, _the missing piece._ _Sherlock weeping into Redbeard's matted, quivering mass. Sherlock, young and achingly brilliant, staring at the stars. Sherlock looking at Mycroft like he adores him._ Sherlock looking at Mycroft like he can't stand the simple thought of him.

“There's something wrong with us. Or everyone else.”

_They are the same and not the same._

“There's nothing wrong with you.”

Mycroft, whose soul is black and sinking, thinking, _just this once, let it be everyone else._

“Then stop trying to fix me,” Sherlock hisses. The heart monitor sings.

 _I'm not,_ Mycroft wants to lie.

 _Never_ , he wants to smile.

He could measure the space between them in fingertips or heartbeats thrumming in his ears or the apparent magnitude of stars or memories of his brother.

He wants nothing more than to eliminate the spaces, all of them, just to see what it feels like. He knows the colour. He thinks he knows the words.

_Maybe they shouldn't lie to each other._

He eliminates brothers one by one until he is left with the truth.

“All right, yes,” he whispers, though it isn't. It is all wrong. The shadow of an improbability, a terrible induction, but he wants it, this. _He seals the decision with the press of his lips to the memory of his brother's hair._ All wrong, this quiet, bright, dreadful thing he doesn't have words for.

All at once, across the room, Sherlock is suddenly very still, very silent, only his hands are trembling and _there_ , there is only colour.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 Vices**

 

Mycroft has miscalculated.

The café is too visible. It feels too much like a performance: two brothers, rearranging features and stirring sugar into black coffee in steady, exaggerated circles.

Nonetheless, he recites his proposition.

“This doesn't need to go through any official channels, you understand. Legwork, no paperwork. You wouldn't be tied to any ministry or department.”

_Crimes. Problems. People to solve._

“Only you.” Sherlock's eyes narrow, mirrored across the table: haughty, disdainful expressions raised a little higher than necessary. Two sets of fingers twitch, impatient or frustrated, pushing against opposite planes of glass.

 _Let me give you what you've always wanted,_ Mycroft thinks. He holds his tongue, his breath.

“You haven't been able to bribe me since I was nine, My,” Sherlock's voice is odd, dark and flickering. “You can't manipulate me like your so-called _superiors_.”

In almost all of the possible outcomes Mycroft has analysed, Sherlock will run himself ragged. He will bring him back, whatever it takes, fists and teeth and strings at the ready, marking him each time a little darker, a little more immune, a little less the brother he adored.

( _“There's something wrong with us. Or everyone else.”_ )

This way, at least, will allow him to observe, deduce, _limit_ the damage, he hopes.

“Still so stuck in the past, My,” Sherlock murmurs, “Much like that suit. You should really find a new tailor.” He pulls out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes and sets one between his lips. He proffers the pack, but Mycroft swats his fingers away, then finds he needs something to do with his hands. Sherlock looks at him as he straightens his waistcoat _(predictable)_ and mutters something about _denial,_ but Mycroft has seven years and self-control and a sober, serrated edge that his brother lacks these days.

(So Mycroft doesn't mention Sherlock's rent and steadily mounting household bills that he has been footing all this time.

He doesn't mention the rehabilitation centre, awaiting his confirmation.

He doesn't mention the uncomfortable conversation with their parents regarding the outgoings from Sherlock's trust fund, nor how disappointed Mummy seems in her elder son.)

“I would benefit from the assistance of a mind such as yours,” Mycroft says, quietly. “I don't want to see you ruin it, Sherlock.”

“Then don't _watch,_ ” a slip in Sherlock's voice then, barely noticeable. He stabs his cigarette out in the ashtray. His fingers clutch the edge of the table and he looks away as Mycroft signals for the bill.

When Sherlock thinks he isn't looking, his mouth lifts very slightly at the corners. Mycroft pretends not to observe.

 

_*_

 

(Somewhere, there are Sherlocks following Mycroft like Polaris above the ocean, navigating ever treacherous waters and enemy ships threatening to make cannon fodder of them both.

 _Pirates had to know the stars,_ his captain told him, as he plotted a carefully constructed course across the charts Daddy had bought from the second hand shop, never straying out on deck until first cannon fire. Together, they fought hard and steadfast, battle plans drawn out meticulously on coffee-stained napkins, enemies real or imagined. Mycroft dealt with the details. Sherlock led the attack.

They were allies and always, they were victorious.)

 

Slowly, Mycroft is learning the terms and the pressing, hollow nature of his most recent victory.

Sherlock will only accept an assignment if it interests him ( _“Eight out of ten or above, Mycroft. I'm not budging.”_ ). It has to consume him completely, to ignite the fire in his bones and keep him running, breathing, coming back.

On what he perceives as his brother's _territory_ , Sherlock seethes instantly. He stamps and hurls himself around his office like a child in a highly classified sweet shop. Twice, he is escorted from the premises, spitting whatever heated words he can wrap his tongue around in the heat of the moment, to see how high he can reach before he lands on the pavement outside, flames licking at his ankles.

Mycroft doesn't intervene. Even in his position, with his credentials, there is always someone to answer to. The knack is in knowing precisely how long to stay silent.

_They have done this before, summers or lifetimes ago: relearning, rehashing the sum of their parts, smoothing over the edges at different ages and stages, drawn closer or further apart._

_They can do it again,_ he tells himself.

Some things do not change. Between assignments, there are hiding games, finding games, cat and mouse games.

Walking across London Bridge one evening, Mycroft hides a smirk as Sherlock deduces a person's _height, weight, age, mental state, salary, prior locations in the last 24 hours_ from a glance, his footsteps and a small, stolen item. His brother advises him to return it, _“with full contents, of course, brother dear,”_ before its owner realises his wallet is missing.

On the crowded Victoria line, covered in “ _mostly someone else's blood, My, don't mother me,”_ he shows Sherlock how to pinpoint a person's likely pressure points. It distracts him enough to enable Mycroft to propel him into a clean overcoat which he pulls seemingly from the air. It enables himto wipe the worst of the mess from his brother's face and hands and then his own, telling Sherlock to _be more careful_ before he leaves at the next station.

The dry cleaning bill for the Belstaff is extortionate. Mycroft pretends he could care less.

Sherlock doesn't ask how Mycroft finds him.

It is all a game until suddenly it isn't, it is _business_ , but Sherlock doesn't seem to see any difference.

Sherlock needs to _prove_ his deductions, Mycroft tells him again and again. People's lives could be hanging in the balance. His voice is cold, sharp, brittle and he knows something is going to snap, but he tells Sherlock he can do better because he _can_ and only Mycroft is allowed to say these things.

He is _better_ , Sherlock says. Better than this. Better than all of the mindless drones Mycroft works with. Really, he only has to _observe_ -

Mycroft observes tirelessly. He knows exactly how much _better_ his brother is and exactly how _puerile, arrogant, deluded_ he can become in a few short seconds.

He needs evidence that he can show, beyond a shadow a doubt, to the greyest of superiors because there may come a time, after all this, when he is not able to-

“You'll live forever, Mycroft. To your late seventies at least,” Sherlock scoffs, bored. “Sedentary lifestyle. High cholesterol,” he gives a sideways glance, up and down. Mycroft feels his colour rise. He resists the urge to adjust his tie, “But it's not like you take any actual _risks_.”

_How would you know?_

There is a scar in the small of Mycroft's back that twinges, only occasionally, with the cold. A mercurial smile that hitches halfway, falters and then falls. A layer of muscle that he fights to maintain, albeit beneath a thin layer of stomach fat.

As far as his brother is concerned, Sherlock fails to observe much of what is right in front of him. Mycroft tells himself this is something he should be eternally grateful for. Sherlock wants everything to be clever, as _complex-simple_ as they used to be: problems, puzzles, pieces to fill the spaces. His brother takes the shape of everything he needs.

 _Always,_ Mycroft worries. He tells himself it will get easier, more bearable.

 

 

*

 

 

There are maybe three days of relative peace when Sherlock ransacks the city on a high-profile embezzlement case, too high up and hushed down for Scotland Yard to get a look in. He is in his element, grinning inanely over the details, laughing even, spouting improbable deduction after deduction in Mycroft's kitchen. He seems crackling with electricity, almost luminous.

Mycroft doesn't ask how he knew where he lived, nor how he got in.

“Brilliant,” he says, softly, and Sherlock looks at him. Sherlock looks at him, warm at the edges, at the corners of his mouth and the tip of his tongue. Sherlock looks at him, greenbluegrey flecked with yellow.

For a split-second, Mycroft is somewhere else, somehow; someone his brother adores.

The next day, Sherlock is ripping Mycroft's colleagues apart with his long, deft fingers and his sharp tongue, finding his way into the crevices between masks and flesh so Mycroft cannot help but nod with a tight smirk and a careful roll of his eyes. He reminds Sherlock that security will be summoned automatically if he steps over the threshold. Sherlock frowns distractedly as he walks away.

The next, Sherlock is intent upon tearing both his brother and his _bright, light, quiet_ flat apart, as though the silence offends him somehow. Classified documents are crumpled, torn, scattered. His eyes are wide, darkly fierce in a way that makes Mycroft feel nauseous as he says, loud enough to tear through the space between them, “ _Enough,_ Sherlock.”

And that is the moment he knows: this is not enough. Sherlock is bored. Sherlock needs something to test him, to occupy him, to push back, _now,_ only Mycroft is so tired that he can hardly stand to look at him.

In the end, it is only his brother: catching him or miscalculating, playing games or taking it all too seriously.

Sherlock spits abuse: _useless, lazy, predictable_ (though his intonation on each reads _detestable)._ It is nothing he doesn't deserve. On his hands and knees, picking up papers and photographs, Mycroft's voice is low and dark.

_His intellect is his weapon, easily contained in his sharp tongue and steely gaze like knives. He can mute it, tune in and out the background noise, contort his expressions and words to fit the greying shell of a well-groomed politician. Mycroft could pass for one of them in the street. He could be dangerous._

Sherlock's intellect is a weapon, chemicals sparking wildly across synapses, unstable and poorly contained. Overwhelming unless overwhelmed, constantly, ceaselessly.

They are the same and not the same and _his brother is going to have to learn to live with it._

The front door slams. Mycroft looks up, too late.

Later that evening, sirens are blaring a spectrum from red to violet that forces its way into Mycroft's eyes and ears and doesn't leave his mind long after the chase is over. He tries to ignore it, downs painkillers, pours himself a brandy and then another, only faint gold lights are swimming at the edge of his vision like needlepoint stars.

He texts a single word to his brother, a prayer:

     - Don't. MH

     - Stop me. SH

_(“It's just a game, My. Play along.”)_

A game or a strand entwined somewhere in the divergent half of their DNA. There, some chemical deficiency or abundance, sending him to distraction, destruction.

It takes two calls, two degrees of separation at this shade of dark.

It takes two calls and a few choice words to pin him down, to inform the proper authorities. Another three to position the car, the policeman and the street vendor on Sherlock's street. Mycroft is deadly serious. His hands are shaking, dangerous, inconsolable as he pours.

     - Under no circumstances attempt further contact. MH

In his mind, brothers are staring, bright and sad and dreadful, waiting for the breaking of skin and bone and expectations.

( _'I wanted to see how far I could get-_ ')

It could mean nothing. It could mean everything. It is the not knowing he cannot stand.

Sherlock takes exactly twenty three minutes to reply; if this is a game, then Mycroft knows he has lost.

     - Big brother is watching. SH

     - How original. MH

     - But yes he is. MH

He could find himself with a lot to answer for, people to answer to, if he was anyone else but this is the eventuality he never knew he was preparing for. To know Sherlock is safe, it is almost worthwhile, yet he feels oddly deflated, almost defeated.

     - If convenient come over. MH

     - Assuming it's inconvenient. On my way. MH

This time the reply is instantaneous.

\- Piss off. SH

Mycroft observes and drinks into the night. He has the means and the methods at his disposal. There is no one who can stop him.

 _If he watches closely enough,_ he tells himself, _he can prevent a catastrophe. He can keep Sherlock occupied. He can keep Sherlock safe._

It all seems too simple until Mycroft attempts to deduce and eliminate _why_ , staring at a screen in the dark.

 

 

_*_

 

(He remembers bloodied knees and elbows twisted out of shape, scrapes and scraps, scars and splinters and red-black heartbeats beneath the gold _._ Falls from trees and chairs and bookshelves. Experiments miscalculated, misfired. A gouge in Sherlock's left knee. A cigarette burn on his chest. Mycroft has catalogued their locations, the marks he was there to witness: the ones he caused, and the ones he failed to prevent, but cleaned and dressed and stuttered apologies as if it were enough.

All the while, his brother squirmed, trying to get free.)

 

As the wreck of the Friesland burns around him, Sherlock throws himself off the deck in the last few seconds before the petrol tank explodes and the world erupts into flame.

Then Mycroft loses him.

He replays the CCTV footage over and over, frame by frame, angle by angle until it is cemented in his brain: the ship, the fire scattered over and across the water and Sherlock, finally. Finally, Sherlock: alive, bleeding, drifting. Found, filed under red.

The footage gets him through the days, sprawling and endless and solemn, but there is only so much he can observe second-hand.

From the hospital bed, Sherlock murmurs deductions: everything Mycroft needs to put the gang responsible away, apart from the cold, hard evidence, burnt to ash or waterlogged at the bottom of the Thames.

 _Yes, that's why he's here,_ _of course._ Mycroft's facial muscles are aching and the words crumple before he can get them out. _Strictly business._ His mouth is dry with too much of his heart in it, or not enough and he _wants_ -

_He wants to crack his brother open, to see how he works; to peel back and crawl inside his skin and feel the dimensions of the bruises and the gash in his sternum and the egg-sized lump on his forehead, just to make sure he is still there, inside._

Instead, he has the task of putting him back together, only he doesn't know how to begin.

The dark, steady look in Sherlock's eyes mirrors his own as he murmurs, quickly, quietly, “Let my people deal with it.”

He will have this sorted lawfully, humourlessly. Mycroft will grit his teeth and look the other way while his government-sanctioned thugs sort this. He will file the necessary paperwork.

They can move on from this. Sherlock will recover, a little darker, a little more immune.

_Useless, lazy, predictable..._

Sherlock looks away, out of the window, at the city sprawling away from them. He has access to parts his brother has only glimpsed, people more desperate, less controlled, more dangerous. It is only his brother.

_When Mycroft closes his eyes, he sees fire and toxicology reports and imprints like constellations etched across thin, pale arms._

There is only so much Mycroft can eliminate wielding someone else's hands.

 

 

*

 

 

Sherlock looks at his brother, fastidious in his grey suit and eyes and expression. He observes the scrape on his knuckles and the heated skin creeping up his neck, deduces the shouts and the footsteps and the gunshot wound (non-fatal), of course, eliminates everything except his ever-cautious brother. He murmurs, darkly, “That's cheating."

"I wasn't aware there were _rules_ governing our rather unique brotherly relations," Mycroft lies smoothly through his teeth, leaving a sick-sour taste, "If there were, you would surely have broken them by now."

“You know, you really should learn to delegate, Mycroft. I'm not sure you've written that into your job description. What was it you told Mummy? 'A minor government official?'"

Mycroft murmurs something about special cases and specific skill sets, but Sherlock doesn't appear to be listening.

Excuses are fading, watercolours dashed across the hospital bed, spilt and spattered in sunlight like flames and nothing has ever made more sense than the way Sherlock stares when he thinks his brother isn't looking.

_He wants to lock the doors and seal them inside each other's walls until they understand each other, until they solve this, together, or not at all._

 

*

 

 

Mycroft gets a call from the hospital, tells them he will collect his brother that afternoon.

In the end, he takes his work home. The bright, light _quietness_ is too much, not enough of a distraction and he gives up half a page into his report.

He reserves a table at his favourite French restaurant, although they are booked up weeks in advance. They are brothers with cause to celebrate, he tells himself. This is what people do.

Mycroft has miscalculated.

The food is sublime as usual. The wine is better. The maître d'hôtel ushers them to a table next to the window, smiling sagely as he lights a candle between them. He personally assures their glasses are never empty, providing a welcome relief from what passes for broken small talk between them. Sherlock eyes his brother through narrowed eyes and picks disinterestedly at his coq au vin. When Mycroft orders another bottle, he cracks a thin, sardonic smile:

"Your local accent's abysmal, My. You'd never pass for a native speaker."

It is the most he has said all evening. Mycroft mirrors his expression, controlled. He doesn't breach the topic of overseas travel. He refrains from ordering dessert and Sherlock refrains from commenting, though his eyes shine wickedly in the light.

They are never the same with an audience and Mycroft has only just realised why.

Sherlock waits until they are safely outside the taxi, outside his brother's flat before he turns, sharply, blocking his path with deductions.

 _The reservation_ (unfortunate business with an assassination attempt on the French ambassador; nothing to concern himself with). _The service._ He has been there before with someone.  Not recently, maybe six months ago. Male. Similar age, probably fairly similar appearance. _The candle._ He didn't bother to correct the assumption.

As Mycroft stumbles, his hands fumbling on the key in the lock, he thinks rather ruefully that he has taught his brother too well.

Sherlock, of course, wants to know who else he has been _celebrating_ with.

"I wouldn't have thought you were the type," Sherlock almost spits, “For _dates_.”

"Not often," he says, quietly, defensively, more than a little uncomfortable as he steps inside, because he isn't, he knows. (He has contacts for when the physical urge arises and he gets it over with before it becomes distracting and he has taught himself not to look across the bare expanse of skin for scars that are not there. It is easier, more bearable.)

"It didn't go well then?" Sherlock presses, “Come on, My, this is what people _do,_ isn't it?” (This awful charade of normalcy, playing _brothers with a cause to celebrate_ and it is his doing, his undoing because they were never like other people, really, now, were they?) Sherlock laughs a little, a side-step behind, though the sound is strained and panicked-unsure and seems to echo through the shadowed hallway. "You can talk about it. Sex doesn't _alarm_ me, Mycroft.”

“How would you know?” his brother snaps and then stops, observes Sherlock still in the doorway to his living room. Mycroft's heart is hammering a certain beat a certain colour: mould, mildew, grey-blue eyes, infested and dark.

_(“There's nothing wrong with you.”)_

“ _You_ alarm me sometimes, Sherlock,” he says, quietly. The words tumble out of his treacherous mouth before he realises.

“I _alarm_ you?” Sherlock _beams_. Mycroft backtracks frantically, tries for a distraction; an excuse that will fit the space of his heart, held up for Sherlock to sever and examine, piece by rotten piece under the microscope. No, that wouldn't do.

“Sometimes I think you're going to burn down my flat while I'm at work.” That he would get back and there would be nothing left of him. Yes, he thinks, it is close enough. Sherlock's voice falls flat, bored.

"Experiment or revenge?”

“Either.” Mycroft has entertained the possibilities during many a dull hour, cataloguing the ways his brother might undo him. It is safer this way. The threat of violence, of arson, of fists and teeth and brothers brawling should be beneath them. He sighs. “Or both. It would start as one of your experiments. You wouldn't put out the fire.”

Sherlock winks and makes a clicking sound with his mouth.

“Entirely possible. Though while you sleep would be easier. Deadlier, too.”

"You don't want to kill me, Sherlock," Mycroft says evenly. Worst enemy or greatest ally, they are the nearest thing to equals that either has ever known.

They sit beside each other on the sofa like strangers, all angles and straight lines. Mycroft pours each of them a brandy and tries to relax. Sherlock shakes his head, leans back against the cushions, closes his eyes.

"Tell me My, what else alarms the _British Government_?"

“Terrorists,” Mycroft settles upon, after a second's hesitation. Sherlock scoffs, bored _(predictable)_."Mutually assured destruction."

“Running out of cake? Surely a national crisis as far as your office is concerned.” Mycroft snorts, unable to stop himself only his brother presses closer and frowns, “But for you, My? I think _loneliness.”_

Mycroft is making terrible inductions between the walls he has built and rebuilt and aches to tear down. Sherlock's eyes are very pale, unblinking, inches away.

 _Alone is what protects me_ , he wants to explain. _Caring is not an advantage_ , but poor attempts at excuses and reasons aside, a world without his brother is unthinkable.

“Only you,” Mycroft breathes, perilously close to the sun and finally, achingly, Sherlock's smile ignites. Mycroft is distracted. He doesn't ask the question in return.

They have both had a drink, too much or not enough.

“It's getting late,” Mycroft stares at Sherlock instead of his watch. “You should stay.”

Sherlock says nothing, not even to chastise his brother (who should know better than to push and test the boundaries between them so needlessly, but he cannot seem to stop.)

Sherlock doesn't move at all so Mycroft draws the curtains. He goes off to fetch a blanket from the wardrobe. When he returns, his brother is stretched out languorously, his fingers tapping the arm of the dark leather sofa, impatient or frustrated. The rhythm is vaguely familiar, though Mycroft cannot place it. Though he hasn't played in years, he wishes he had kept his violin.

“Good night, brother dear,” Mycroft tries from the doorway, but his voice cracks miserably on the syllables as his fingers fumble on the switch. In the half light, everything appears bruised, green and grey and blue.

“Stay,” Sherlock says, quietly, so quiet that Mycroft could _(should)_ pretend not to hear him. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears, almost drowning him out, but everything is the colour of Sherlock's eyes, so he moves to the sofa, almost tripping over his brandy in the process _(a game, a game, only he's sick of playing)._ He downs the liquid, then puts a hand to his brother's shoulder.

Mycroft squeezes lightly, _Good night, brother dear,_ a courtesy, a gesture of comfort. He removes the pressure. He needs to go to bed. He needs something to do with his hands.

He doesn't know what Sherlock needs from him.

Mycroft's hand stays, then strays across his scapulae. Sherlock arches back into his brother's touch, breathtakingly, breathing softly, shuddering. Under his breath, he murmurs the names of bones. His voice is soft and low and sad. Mycroft can feel the vibrations travelling through every part of him, the same and not the same and he wonders and stops and shuts his eyes. He wishes he could stop thinking at all.

“Feels good,” Sherlock murmurs and a whispered afterthought, (tentative, guilty, nervous? Deductions are flying and nothing is making any sense except the words, smooth in a russet brandy baritone) “Don't stop.”

So Mycroft takes his brother apart like he would a puzzle, a problem; deducing piece by improbable piece under his fingertips. He works his way into the spaces between tense muscle, twitching, fragile bone; cataloguing how they shudder beneath his skin and the fabric of his shirt. Lying in the dark and the quiet listlessness of breaths, Mycroft can hardly tell where each of them ends and begins and still, it is not enough.

Sherlock is awake, breathing like he is asleep and Mycroft still doesn't know what to do with his hands so he wraps an arm around his brother's waist and holds him, tight and aching, like he hasn't in years. Still, they fit together like muscle memory, a skin apart beneath covers and clothes.

Mycroft draws back a little, folds the blanket between their bodies and holds it down with his weight. He puts his arm around Sherlock again, loosely, still able to feel the indents of his ribcage as he breathes in, out, as he slips uneasily into sleep.

Mycroft dreams of sharp tongues and soft lips pressing together, harsh and fast, locking, unlocking something terrifying. He dreams of notched breathing and the scramble of fabric tossed aside and a map of scars as white as bone beneath his fingertips. A puzzle; the problem of a warm weight pressing him down, heavier than he expected. Edges, ridges and planes almost bruising, sharp and lovely against his form. The scrape of teeth and nails over skin and blood like fears rushing to the surface, blossoming red, marking him.

After, he dreams of drowning.

After that, nothing at all.

 

 

*

 

 

_(You're going to crack me open and you won't stop._

_You're going to run and I won't be able to find you until they call to say you're on a slab in the morgue and I come to identify the body._

_You'll solve the problems in our DNA, plot our intellects against each other, separate our components and observe deduce eliminate the things I don't want you to see._

_You're going to let me touch you and I won't be able to stop.)_

 

*

 

In the morning, Mycroft wakes half-hard and half-clothed. The emptiness of his flat and the space beside him is too much so he turns the shower as high as it will go and stands under the steady stream of water until his skin is pinkred _sore_ all over, so that when he looks in the bathroom mirror, he can barely see the marks. He pulls on a silk dressing gown and sits on the sofa. The scent and the shape of his brother remains, imprinted in the cushions, on his skin, deeper still.


	5. Chapter 5

If Mycroft could just find the words, some easy excuse and a promise, _It will not happen again_ , but for his body giving himself away: his pulse and his pupils and the way his body shifts as though in orbit-

He could. _He would._

He almost believes himself.

 

 

*

 

 

He spends time out of the city, then out of the country. The list of people who owe him favours, who have him on file, who recognise _what he might be capable of_ , is small but growing ever steadily.

Back in London, his brother is reduced to a fleeting image on a screen. _Nothing too drastic_ , he tells himself; easily manageable across the distance; hired hands who are easily replaceable should they become too obvious.

After a while, every city begins to look the same. He notices the similarity in each language. The motivations and the lines on the faces of the people passing seem all too familiar, crude and predictable. The food has no taste so he gorges until he feels sick, drinks in the privacy of a hotel suite until the colours and shapes blur into each other. He spends the nights staring up at the spinning ceiling thinking about the stars.

When he returns to the office, his assistant stares when she thinks he isn't looking.

He almost expects to find Sherlock indisposed, manic and sleepless or god forbid, passed out on a soiled mattress somewhere he cannot or will not follow: to be dragged, twisted, contorted back into a shape that passes for functioning until the next time. He checks his sources for something he has missed.

It would take Sherlock Holmes to fool him.

When he returns home, Sherlock is lying on his couch and staring up, counting faults in the paintwork, deducing stains in the ceiling. Mycroft considers feigning horror, surprise, fury; indeed, anything other than this sad helpless feeling clawing away at his stomach lining.

“Sherlock-” he starts, stops, clears his throat, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Sherlock turns his gaze towards him, hard and unblinking. “You're supposed to be the smart one, My. You tell me.”

So Mycroft takes the bait, with something like relief, “I _am_ the smart one, Sherlock.”  Mycroft rolls his eyes, moves his lips (he only wanted Sherlock to admit it, after all), “I assume you're not here for the wisdom of my years, or the pleasure of my company, Sherlock. What do you need money for?”

Sherlock scoffs and this is a game, of course it is. How lazy, dull, predictable. Mycroft's mind is calculating the variables, assigning a value to each, but _most likely_ isn't good enough.

 _You tell me._ The truth is he cannot be sure. He does not want to be.

Sherlock stretches himself out on Mycroft's couch. His dark shirt rides up a little, exposing a pale strip of flesh. Mycroft's gaze flickers only for a second. There is a gleam in Sherlock's eyes. He is beginning to enjoy himself.

Mycroft waits for the endless stream of deductions to begin. He might as well have the things he has seen etched on the canvas of his skin. It is all there, everything he tries so hard to hide, should one merely _observe_ : how he holds himself in, breathes, pulls himself back together.

Mycroft deduces something else entirely.

“You missed me,” he says, so quietly that Sherlock could ignore it if he wanted to.

 _I didn't expect you to,_ he realises and something flutters in his stomach.

Sherlock's mouth tilts at one side, his eyes hard and unforgiving, “No sentiment, My. I assure you." He looks down for just a moment.  _I loved you, once,_ Mycroft sees _._  Almost too quickly his brother sneers, “You're just the only one who can keep up.”

Mycroft aches and Sherlock looks out of the window, the nearest thing he has ever had to an equal (his closest ally, his greatest nemesis). The city is settling, dull and lucid. Sherlock's voice is low and _darkgreytired_ and without anyone to share his thoughts, to track his reasoning, the space inside his head is a desolate place.

“How can you stand it, My?”

“There are far worse forms of torture than _boredom_ , little brother,” Mycroft states. Sherlock is watching him closely but he doesn't speak of them.

Perhaps, Mycroft thinks, it is fault. It is down to the leading role he played in their childhood, making up the games and the rules for Sherlock to break. Sherlock never could entertain himself.

“I never needed to,” Sherlock says sadly. _You always came running._ Mycroft deduces.

Studying the tiles, Sherlock's smile is wide and unforgiving. It doesn't meet his eyes. “I used to think you must hate me.”

“I assure you, that was never my-” Mycroft tries stiffly, fails, because Sherlock edges close, his intellect and obstinacy and restless, meticulous attention fixated.

“ _Sentiment_ ,” Sherlock sneers.

Mycroft watches as Sherlock's whole body shrugs, limbs folding, all nonchalance and rolling eyes and quiet, angry desperation because he _doesn't have anyone else_. He is regretting coming here at all.

“You were always the exception,” Mycroft murmurs. Even now, Sherlock breaks all the rules he sets himself. There is an ache in Mycroft's chest, a certain space. “I worry about you,” he says, “Constantly.”

He senses Sherlock's mind flitting across variables.

 _Obligation (perhaps Mummy's idea). Loneliness. A guilty conscience._ He finds something he wasn't looking for, briefly, in the crossed lines of his brother's form, in the angle of his shoulders.

“You keep leaving,” Sherlock says, simply; an observation, a declaration of fact.

Mycroft is forced to watch as Sherlock's face empties carefully, canvas-blank, only a little too late.

_I loved you, once._

_You keep leaving._

(He is thinking of his brother's predisposition for self-destruction. He is thinking of  his almost-lifeless form and the feeling that he could have, should have done something, anything. He is thinking of living with this longing, feeling it, breathing it, regretting it for the rest of his life.)

There are far worse forms of torture after all, but he doesn't speak of them.

“Oh Sherlock-” Mycroft breathes. _I'm here for you,_ he means, _for as long as you want me._ He means, _I'm sorry._ Sherlock looks at him like he loathes him. It strikes Mycroft that as far as he is concerned, perhaps his brother deduces something else entirely.

So Mycroft wraps his arms around his brother and doesn't let go, even when Sherlock struggles. Sherlock is stiff in his arms as though he might know, as if he observes too much and yet, improbably, he is still here. Mycroft will take it, keep it safe, there. 

“I am truly sorry, Sherlock,” he says. Even to Mycroft's own ears, his voice sounds obvious, miserable, desperate ( _You could love me again_ , he thinks, fiercely, terribly, _You could_ ). Sherlock's eyes are glinting dangerously as he says, “Tell me what you want.”

_You're supposed to be the smart one. You tell me._

Sherlock is always the exception. As far as he is concerned, perhaps he deduces something else entirely.

 

 

*

 

 

Academia never seemed a good fit for him (dull, dry, requiring too much self-discipline and too little practical application). Mycroft's course content has been shelved respectively, used infrequently. 

Of course, he used his time at university more productively than most: to practice the balancing act of persuasion and manipulation, the art of making every person in the room feel that he agrees with them. He has a vast and easily accessible network of peers and scholars. The mention of his name is usually enough.

Mycroft sets things in motion for Sherlock to complete his studies in London. He pulls strings where he can: pays his brother's tuition, corresponds with tutors, facilitates his access between colleges, disciplines, laboratories which might maintain his interest.

Idly, out of habit, Mycroft tracks Sherlock's movements. He wants to know what interests him, what he _needs_ to know for whatever it is that has caught his attention. The results are inconclusive at best. It occurs to him that perhaps Sherlock is doing this deliberately to fool him.

He doesn't seem to know how to stop.

He sends his people to shadow his brother, to send quick updates on his progress, his acquaintances, his well-being.  _Nothing too drastic_ , he tells himself. Easily manageable, easily replaceable. Impersonal.

A number of minor injuries befall his colleagues. Nothing too severe. A broken wrist, bruised ribs, a mild concussion. Only one asks for a transfer and he finds himself indeterminably unemployed. There is always someone more desperate, more willing to take risks. Money, after all, is no objection.  Mycroft isn't concerned in the slightest.

Until, of course, Sherlock arrives at his office with an expression like thunder and Mycroft pretends he hasn't been expecting the storm. He bursts in, followed by two red-faced security guards. One is hobbling, trying not to grind his teeth down to the gums and failing miserably; the other is hunched over, hands raised in swollen fists. Mycroft raises his eyebrows, eyes glinting in either well-concealed admiration or severe disapproval.

“I'll take it from here, thank you,” he says coldly.

They are never the same with an audience but Sherlock continues to glower long after they leave.

Mycroft feels too aware of his body pressing into the soft leather cushion of his seat, of the crumbs and lick of grease from his breakfast pastries, of the coffee stain on the sleeve of his jacket as Sherlock observes, mirthlessly.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says, frowning; isn't sure what comes next. Perhaps he knows all too well.

“I wanted to let you know that I appreciate your assistance,” his brother says stiffly.

“My pleasure,” Mycroft answers. Sherlock looks at him and precisely one half of his mouth curls up crudely in a poor impression of a smile.

“Yes. I think it is, isn't it?” Mycroft's heart is beating too fast. Sherlock closes his eyes, as if assessing his options. He opens them again, seems to find each of them equally detestable. “ _Stop following me_ , Mycroft.”

(He is thinking of running and circling and going nowhere. He is thinking of the bones and cartilage breaking like twigs. He is thinking of Sherlock's body drawn out on his sofa and his heart beating too fast and his sleeping body reacting to the proximity of another.) 

“I'm _delighted_ that you're forging your own path, Sherlock.”

“You're an abysmal liar, My.”

“You're an abysmal sociopath,” Mycroft retorts and he shouldn't because Sherlock laughs, eyes shining viciously, longing to prove him wrong. Here they are, still playing games, pushing and pulling in different directions until something snaps.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” his younger brother smiles, falsely, far too wide. “I was wrong. I don't want your help. I need to do this for myself, Mycroft,” he says smoothly, too calmly, too reasonably.

It is all wrong. Mycroft can sense that he is holding back: every conversation underscored by years of resentment, by his fierce and frankly dangerous independent streak that Mycroft cannot seem to allow. He has rehearsed this too many times to be convincing. For anyone else, it would be more than enough. No, it seems his brother has forgotten who he is talking to. Then again, his intonation is too meticulously calculated (Yes, _what does my dull, cautious older brother need to hear?_ ).

“I wish it were that simple, Sherlock.”

Everything he has done has been to protect his brother, for as long as he can remember. It is the only solution he has.

It is his own fault as his brother sidesteps the observations and deductions, cuts straight to the core of him with his eyes and his words as he eliminates with a hiss, “You need me more than I need you.”

“Sherlock-” he starts. There is nothing he can threaten him with.

 _You could love me again_ , Mycroft thinks, fading, miserably, as Sherlock turns to walk away. His shoulders are slightly hunched and he pauses very slightly at the door. _You could._

“Please,” he whispers, so quiet that his brother could pretend he hasn't heard.

 

 

*

 

 

(It was a rule, a promise, whispered to himself whenever his thoughts strayed to the brother he had left behind, even before he realised the full and dreadful extent of his longing.

Sentiment was a risk, a chemical defect, a pressure point.

It was, at the very least, a distraction.

Like everything else he set his mind to, Sherlock loved with a furious intensity, the force of which terrified his elder brother. It always had. There was an innocence about it, an obstinacy.

It could only be a matter of time before someone noticed, before someone used it to break him, piece by piece; to take his mind apart and alter the chemistry and leave him darker, duller, immutably changed.

On a night when they couldn't see the stars, he told his brother, _Caring is not an advantage,_ as though he might stop himself, as if he could turn the frequency down, make the _always_ just a shade darker, more bearable. He never could.)

Back then, Mycroft failed to realise he was warning Sherlock against himself.

 

 

*

 

 

When Mycroft calls, Sherlock doesn't answer. Mycroft listens to the answer-phone recording but never leaves a message.

One evening, three brandies down and tired and sick, sick, _sick_ of playing, he texts with his heart in his mouth:

          I require your assistance on a few matters of state. MH

A few hours later, Sherlock replies.

          I neither want nor require your assistance Mycroft. SH

_You need me more than I need you._

He doesn't know how to stop but he is less obvious.

He has never felt quite so alone. Even Mummy neglects to call these days.

He hides it well of course, shelves it and moves on; pushes himself to build the walls of his silent empire, piece by piece, around them. He tells himself that this is what he wanted, all along.

 

 

*

 

 

In his line of work, Mycroft regularly witnesses torture. Every day, there are decisions to be made. Someone lives. Another person dies. The world keeps turning.

Mycroft overhears the moniker by accident. At work, somebody jokingly refers to him as the Iceman. It quickly catches on. In truth, he finds he doesn't mind it. It fits the reputation he has built for himself.

_(He knows a great many ways to inflict pain without leaving scars._

_He knows what to do, what to say, to make a desperate man agree to anything._

_He can deduce precisely how long a person will last before giving up the information he desires; how long they will be useful to him.)_

He suspects that his colleagues might be a little scared of him.

Mycroft regularly witnesses torture, in his line of work. Sometimes he is the one who orders it. Sometimes he has the power to end it.

It is his ability to disassociate that has made him successful. There is only one exception.

 

 

* 

 

 

He sits at his desk, gazing out of the window, across the sprawling city. The people below do not look up, carry on with their routines without observation, without consideration.

Sherlock graduates, still frequents the pathology labs at Barts. He seems to have made a few acquaintances, bribed them with a few personal favours.

Mycroft finds his method scattered across the city: an anonymous article in the Mercury; splayed across a website entitled ' _The Science of Deduction',_ advertising the services of the world's first and _only_ Consulting Detective, cash required upfront.

Sometimes he thinks about fixing a diamond to the glass and breaking it through. The people below do not look up. They do not observe. 

 

 

*

 

 

Finally, Mycroft weakens.

“A private detective, Sherlock, really?” he drawls, spying Sherlock flicking through a newspaper, in the seat opposite on the tube, scribbling between the columns. _How pedestrian,_ he tells himself; _how predictably, suitably fascinating._

Sherlock scowls, folds the paper, shoves it under his arm. There are no coincidences, as far as his brother is concerned. The layer of fat over his stomach is proof that Mycroft has never been good at denying himself anything. He couldn't have hoped to avoid him for long.

 _For now,_ he settles, tries again. _Consulting detective_ , is the ambition he pronounces with a grim sort of determination. It's a decision of sorts, a cure for boredom, a solution which Mycroft can begrudgingly appreciate if nothing else.

“Who would consult _you_?” Mycroft asks, genuinely interested. It comes out wrong, cold, disdainful, and Sherlock glowers.

_Obvious. Odious._

“Have you sent any of your newspaper deductions to Scotland Yard, at least?”

Sherlock's lip curls in a sneer and his brow crinkles like newspaper, like ash, like a young boy drowned and another ignored.

(At a push, Mycroft could find a contact, someone who might actually pay attention to what his brother had to say. An upshot young sergeant, disillusioned, willing to bend the rules if it means he might rise a little faster through the ranks. He knows the type. If Sherlock could only keep his mouth shut-)

“I don't want your contacts. I don't want anything from you.”

Still Mycroft tries to warn his brother: the small matter of clients, of good public relations, of an image and a status to uphold. No one else will be watching him, pulling strings, pulling him out of whatever mess he has made.

“People will consult me because I'm right, Mycroft. Not because of who or what I know.” Sherlock hisses, “Not because I've _persuaded_ them into it.”

“Simply a matter of _deduction_ , brother dear,” Mycroft twists with a thinly veiled smile, “Of using it to your advantage.”

Sherlock looks at him with disgust, loathing and worse, understanding.

 

 

*

 

 

Sherlock finds a number of clients. Their cases are dull, simple; would take him half an hour to crack at best. Mycroft knows that serial adulterers and thefts won't satisfy his brother's brilliant mind for very long. 

For his part, Mycroft makes carefully worded suggestions. Each case is analysed for interest and potential risk. His communications are slick, managed without leaving so much of a trace.

Sherlock's reputation begins to grow of its own accord.

Mycroft monitors his brother's emails, his notes and his calls because he can, because he isn't sure what else to do. It gives him a head start, if nothing else.

If he steps in, Sherlock will never forgive him. If not, he will never forgive himself. Some things do not change.

Mycroft forces his brother to urinate into a jar after investigating a narcotics case.

Mycroft arrives with medical supplies and cautious words.

Mycroft arrives too late to be of any use whatsoever, merely rubbing salt into whatever wound may have come about.

 _I can't lose you,_ he thinks, checking Sherlock's eyes for signs of concussion, _Not again._

Sherlock is furious; this is so like him to show up  _just as things are getting interesting._ So predictable, dull, detestable.

After refusing point blank to go to A&E, Sherlock ends up at his brother's flat. Mycroft has his brother's blood on his hands and on his couch and fetches him a bag of frozen peas for the swelling.

Sherlock looks at Mycroft like he won't forgive him. Mycroft resigns himself to living with that.

He listens to Sherlock's excuses and finds them inexcusable.

(He could ruin Sherlock's chances, if he wanted to; suppress this attempt at independence. He feels the need to explain himself, before it comes to that.)

Sherlock looks at him, as if he knows of what he might be capable, as though he despises him.

( _Why do you keep leaving me?_

 _Why won't you leave me alone?_ )

 _Sherlock_ , Mycroft wants to say, _You only have to observe._

His mouth is dry. His brain is flitting across variables. His stomach is turning. He cannot bear to look at his brother for too long. Sherlock observes him, quietly, too close, blurring lines and colours together. He puts the peas back in the kitchen, stands before his brother. Too gently, he says, “Stop trying to protect me, My.”

Mycroft puts both hands on Sherlock's arms like he's pinning him in place. It's almost as if he's keeping one or the other of them in control, only he isn't sure which. It's as if he isn't sure what else to do but hold him, still (safe), as if he doesn't know how to let go. He isn't sure he can.

_Everything I've done, everything-_

Even now, with the proximity of his brother, he can feel his body betraying him in the crudest, most inconvenient of ways. He keeps telling himself that he can make this work; that they can go back to the way it used to be, that they can be happy.

_Stop trying to protect me._

“Never,” Mycroft's voice cracks.

Sherlock is too close. Mycroft cannot find the words to make himself excusable, his blood rushing south, so he steps back from Sherlock's ever-observant gaze, cursing his transport. He puts his hands up automatically as if to defend himself, only Sherlock's hands close around his wrists, locking them together. He feels warm and _good_ and alive, pressing against him and suddenly Mycroft is backed against his living room wall.

He tries to steady his breathing, focusing on the distance between them. He is hard, visibly, embarrassingly. His hands are steady but a thin sheen of sweat covers his temples. Sherlock takes his pulse.

“Let me,” he says, gently, so quietly that his brother could pretend not to have heard if he wanted to; as if he doesn't know that Mycroft will take whatever his brother offers him. As if he doesn't know he is in control; that, when it comes to his brother, he always has been.

When his younger brother kisses him like he means to destroy him, Mycroft has only himself to blame. The kiss is so soft that it aches. Mycroft's world-weary mouth is being searched for weakness, slowly, tested, tasted. Sherlock is hesitant, surprisingly gentle and Mycroft is still. As Sherlock pulls away, he is all too aware of his own breathing, of oxygen, of gravity pinning them in place like stars.

(It is so far from the scrape of tongues and teeth he has dreamed of, the bruising and breaking of skin, some sort of struggle to be rushed and regretted and resented later on.)

It is something else entirely, exquisite and dangerous.

He can feel the ghost of Sherlock's breath as he moves across the fault line of his lips, wrenching a soft moan from his his throat as Mycroft finally breathes him in. He isn't sure what to do with his hands: finds his fingers tangled gently in Sherlock's curls.

“Sherlock-” _we shouldn't do this,_ he doesn't say and all the right reasons and worse: _What would Mummy say?_

 _You're brilliant,_ he wants to press softly to the corner of Sherlock's upturned mouth.

“I know,” Sherlock breathes with a catch, his pupils outstretched unto the abyss as black as ink as tar as the spaces between the pinpoints of stars, bright and sad and dreadful.

Mycroft finds himself staring at what is left, no matter how improbable. He raises a hand to cup Sherlock's face, smooths a thumb over the angles of his cheekbone, his jawline. Then he kisses Sherlock like he wants to fix them together.

It is the worst, most selfish thing he can do. It is everything he doesn't dare to say, bottled up and shaken to bursting point, aching for release. Everything is drenched in colour. The soft, hungry sounds Sherlock makes are like ink and honey, dew on blackberries and stolen champagne. Everything is brilliant, fascinating, dreadful. Mycroft is powerless to resist.

 _You're going to let me win,_ Sherlock's realises as they pull apart. Mycroft sees his brother imprinted in the dark at the back of his eyelids, then in front of him with goose-pimpled flesh rising and falling over his skin and an expression like he _wants_ this. He sees their trajectory laid bare in greenbluegrey.

 _I could do anything, right now,_ he sees in those eyes. _You'd let me._

( _Tiny hands poking through the bars of a cot, grasping his wrists, wrapping listlessly around a cigarette or the stem of a stolen glass_. _Two halves of a brain and a beating heart and bodies that fit together too well, each completing the other._

_Sherlock. Sherlock.)_

_You'll regret this,_ he knows, as Sherlock presses flush against him; his bones, his own flesh and blood; even as every fibre of him aches with longing. He knows, as Sherlock kisses his chest,  pulling his shirt open like he wants to undo him, too fast with his hands sliding across his skin beneath the fabric. He meets his brother's gaze, black hole pupils swallowing the blue, _You don't want this._

Mycroft needs to end this because he is the only one who can. He is the one in control, he always has been. He has to be because no one else could stop them and maybe that is what he is so afraid of.

It is like a dream, like a nightmare.

(He wants to thrust desperately, rutting against the angles of his brother's body again and again. He wants to take his brother to bed and lie him down and worship every inch of his body the way he has dreamt of and curl up around him the way he used to as if it will keep him safe. He wants to lock himself in the bathroom with a hand wrapped around himself until he comes hard with a name on his lips and a half-formed fantasy that should never, ever be.)

 _He wants._ Sherlock observes, deduces. Mycroft can feel the white-hot intensity of his brother's gaze, as though he is something brilliant, fascinating, dangerous.

Sherlock is watching his expression with an almost-sad half-smile that says he knows what he is doing and that he knows Mycroft better than he knows himself as he propels him to the couch. He falls back against the cushions. Sherlock's knees press either side of his thighs. His hands unbuckle and unzip, pull on the waistband of his underwear. Mycroft tilts his lower body off the seat, as Sherlock slides down him, onto his knees, between his legs. He surrenders.

Sherlock's fingers inch up and across, spread across his stomach, his hipbones and down, across the dusting of reddish pubic hair. Sherlock leans in: presses his lips feather-light to the sensitive skin there, there, _there_.

Mycroft feels the muscles in the back of his thighs flex, clench, shudder. Sherlock slides his thumb over the slit of his cock, pressing a sticky trail against his skin. Sherlock lifts his thumb to his lips, tastes it, inquisitively.

Mycroft lets out a groan, soft and low and desperate as Sherlock stares up at him through his eyelashes and takes him into his mouth. He is thinking:

(Of stars; of atoms colliding, dispersing, colliding. Of lying, stretched out on their backs beneath them, of whispering their names and of a longing he doesn't know how to live without.)

Of anything other than bucking his hips and moaning his brother's name.

Every shuddered breath sends fireworks ricocheting to his nerve endings. Sherlock swallows and he cannot _thinkseehear_ straight. He comes with his brother's name flush on his lips.

He could be murmuring under his breath, a name, a promise, a lifetime. Over the blood pounding in his ears, he could be giving himself away. He isn't sure. His brother squirms, gasping for breath.

“My,” he whispers, “My,” and his breath, cool against his saliva, before Mycroft propels them both up, sideways and Sherlock grips the fabric of Mycroft's shirt with one hand, his cock with the other. Mycroft covers his hand with his own and Sherlock spills brokenly over his chest, panting. A little breathless, body softening, eyes half-closed, he is the most brilliant, beautiful thing his brother should never have dreamed of.

He catches his breath, eyes turned away, mind already caught upon the problem to be solved.

_(What did we do?_

_What do we do?_

_How do we live with this?)_

Almost immediately, Sherlock fumbles for his clothes, scattered across the floor. He zips his dark jeans, buttons his shirt in silence.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft manages. His brother looks up very briefly at the sound of his name. Mycroft knows he is ruined, half-clothed, coated in sweat and come. The lines in his face will be etched a little deeper than ever before. His lips swollen, his cheeks flush with the fever of it. His eyes so, so tired, and full of regret. Sherlock observes and doesn't appear disgusted. His face is carefully blank. _I love you. I'm sorry. I love you._ “Please. Stay.”

He should know better, but he cannot help himself.

So Sherlock sits beside him, his head leaning back against the cushions. One of his hands grips his brother's arm. Eventually, his head slips to his brother's shoulder, his weight pressing against him. One of Mycroft's hands slips amongst his curls. Sherlock hums. He falls asleep half-lying in his brother's lap.

At some point, Mycroft guides Sherlock to his bed. Later, Sherlock is still beside him and breathing like he is asleep. Mycroft finds himself tracing the patterns of explosions on the back of Sherlock's neck, just beneath his ear. He presses his lips to the spot, breathes him, commits him to memory, should he disappear without warning.

He dreams of the stars. He dreams of drowning. He dreams of his brother.

When Mycroft wakes, Sherlock is softly dreaming beside him, the shape of everything he ever wanted.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock smells like sweat-endorphins-sex, smells like his brother and in sleepy strands of gold he half-mumbles, “My.”
> 
> Mine, his brother hears. It sounds like observable, deducible, improbable truth and it makes him shiver, almost moan. It hurts in his chest and deeper still.
> 
> “Yes,” he says, softly. “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a short update, but I finally figured out how to do this. This will be completed within the next couple of months.

**Chapter 6**

(From an early age, Mycroft knew there were certain rules that governed the things people did, the way they felt, the things they said out loud. He didn't like them, kept them safe in the back of his mind to use, sparingly, only when necessary. More often than not though, he made his own.

Then, there was Sherlock, who seemed determined to break each one almost without thought, a hurricane running through his tangled limbs and curls.

Mycroft loved him for it. He always had.

Mycroft made his rules regardless: used them to protect them from anyone who dared to threaten his brother, to question him, to make him feel he was anything less than remarkable.

_“You'll take care of him-”_

Always.)

 

 

As Mycroft untangles himself gently from his brother's body, Sherlock's eyes flicker. He mumbles something into the pillow, half asleep, as he turns. There is a gap in the curtains letting the light through, illuminating the inhale-exhale of his ribcage. His pale skin is blotted with too-white cigarette burns. Scratches the exact distance of a man’s fingernails. A constellation across the inside of his elbows. There is a faint reddish bruise over his right carotid Mycroft could deduce but chooses not to.

Sherlock smells like sweat-endorphins-sex, smells like his brother and in sleepy strands of gold he half-mumbles, _“My.”_

 _Mine_ , his brother hears. It sounds like observable, deducible, improbable truth and it makes him shiver, almost moan. It hurts in his chest and deeper still.

“Yes,” he says, softly. “Always.”

 

*

 

As final arrangements are made, Mycroft meets with those he has unofficially hired, thanks them for their service in ‘Operation Redbeard’, terminating immediately and indeterminately.

In hushed tones, he thanks Anthea for all she has done. There are several matters he has yet to fully conclude. Her new contract comes a considerable pay package. It should cement her path on the career she deserves. For a long moment, Mycroft’s hard gaze is matched as she signs. He pretends not to notice her bottom lip tremble as he clasps her hand in both of his.

Before the helicopter departs, Mycroft places the final bid on a 1727 Stradivarius at Christie's auction house. He orders a handcrafted bow of silver and ebony. He parts with more money than he has ever spent in his life.

He considers it an investment. The music will be beautiful.


End file.
